Entries Tagged 'Comics' ↓

I was just poking around my hard drive (not as sexy as it sounds) and I found this Shining-related comic strip from...well, from the days when I was doin' a comic strip (also not as sexy as it sounds). It's a few years old (!!!), so it may be new to you. Yes, this is the thrift store of posts- click to embiggen!

When I was only small, my elementary school would have these fucking rad events called Book Fairs. A few times a year, a small room off the cafeteria was filled with books books books you could buy buy buy. They were open late-ish so you could come back after dinner with your mom or dad and...you know, buy some books. As a nerd, I really looked forward to these fairs, and my mom always obliged my nerdish tendencies (she still does, by the way). We'd go and I'd come home with a small armful of gems: some Judy Blume, some Beverly Cleary (Ramona Quimby for the win)...and certainly anything horror-related. As the books were aimed at grade-schoolers, the pickin's were slim, unless you count Bunnicula (which I do). One particularly magical year- of course it was 1981- they had the Classics Illustrated edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula. As you can imagine, young Final Girl snatched that shit up. I mean, who could resist Dracula in a purple suit- complete with see-through purple cape!- floating around in front of his green castle? Certainly not I, and thankfully not my mom, either.

The story was adapted by Naunerle Farr and Nestor Redondo. As I grew up to be a fairly well-read comics fan, I've become familiar with the late Redondo's fantastic work through the 70s and 80s on titles like House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, and Conan. He concentrated heavily in horror-based comics, for which his gothic flair is particularly well-suited. Of course, when I was poring over Dracula again and again, my opinion on his amazing draftsmanship wasn't one that would...well, include words like "draftsmanship", but I still knew beautiful art when I saw it. Seriously, You couldn't count on 3456892358984292 hands the number of times I've gawked at this book. The linework and inks are so good, I kind of want to eat them.




Many comics have become about detail, about cramming as much crap into a panel as possible; of course there are big exceptions to this (Mike 'Hellboy' Mignola is the first that comes to mind), but to me there's simply an overabundance of unnecessary information on the pages. I don't know where this came from- the Image boom in the 90s, from editors or from the artists themselves- but it's resulted in artists not being able to maintain a monthly schedule. Working together, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers could crank out 8-9 pages a day, in no small part thanks to the fact that there's not a lot of extra stuff on the page. You get everything you need as a reader and it's creative and gorgeous, but it's simple.

This is all my big old lady complainy-way of saying that the panels in Dracula have atmosphere to spare and lush environments, but it's streamlined. Take, for example, one of my favorite pages:

The back of the book also has some sweet WORDS TO KNOW:

• ancestors
• bloodthirsty
• chapel
• howling
• ignorant
• superstition
• vampire

and some reading comprehension questions:

• What is a blood transfusion? What good was a blood transfusion after being attacked by Dracula?
• What animals could Dracula change into?
• How can a person protect himself from a vampire?

I certainly hope for the sake of all teeny tiny nerds out there- especially the horror nerds- that book fairs are still alive and well and they sell amazing comics like Dracula. How else are kids supposed to learn about words like "bloodthirsty", or know what sexy vampire ladies look like? Won't someone think of the purple suits?

If you are particularly astute, you will notice that I have done a comic for this month's installment of the Film Club.

If you are super wicked astute, you will notice that I just darkened the pencils rather than inking the strip. This was my effort to give the comic an old-timey, vintage feel.

That, or I was just feeling lazy. Either way, clicking makes 'em big!






Film Club Coolies, y'all!
----------------------------
Nilbog Milk
Creature Cast
Slammed & Damned
Invasion of the B-Movies
Zombie Cupcake
Hey! Look Behind You!
The Verdant Dude
Mike Petrik
The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense
emmanation
In One Ear...
namtab
Pussy Goes Grrr
Movie Reviews and Everything Else
Mother Firefly's Faster Pussycats
Things That Don't Suck
The United Provinces of Ivanlandia
Mermaid Heather (she's back...one of us! one of us!)
Emma Blackwood

One of my earliest AMC columns was all about horror comics becoming horror movies- which ones stink, which ones anti-stink, and so on- and in it I mentioned Tomb of Dracula #69 (April 1979, yo!), the penultimate issue in Marvel's Dracula saga. It's the first comic I remember owning- choosing it from the newsstand because of this amazing cover (click to embiggen):

Now, I know I've talked about this comic in the past, about how it put me on the road to becoming the horror & comic fan I am today- and it certainly ignited my love of the gross-looking vampire. I mean, the issue- which finds Dracula stripped of his status as Lord of the Vampires and on the run from an angry vamp horde- features said gross-looking bloodsuckers trying to get their cold, bony fingers on kids. Kids! I was a kid! No one was safe from the hungry undead! EYAAAAGH!


So, sure, I'm repeating myself a bit, but in this day and age of angst-ridden sparkling vampires, I think it bears repeating: Tomb of Dracula was a brilliant comic book proving that vampires could be wrapped up in soap opera-worthy storylines and they could be mysterious, evil, and scary. I mean:

The dead ones laugh, and the laugh is as cold as their rain-soaked flesh!

Please- that's the shit.

The writing-pencilling-inking team of Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, and Tom Palmer is one of those magical unions that comes along every so often in the world of comics, where words and art serve each other and mesh together flawlessly enough that the work is still celebrated 30 years on. You can pick up the entire saga in black and white (which only adds to the gothic atmosphere) in 3 volumes of Marvel Essentials: Tomb of Dracula and settle in for some sweet comics-y goodness. Marvel was a heavy hitter in horror in the 1970s, and ToD stands out as some of the best stuff they've ever published.

Suck on that!

And so begins a new weekly feature here at FG: talking about horror comics. Why Wednesday? Because duh, that's new comic day. Why "comix"? Because duh, the "x" makes it cool. Anyway, I'll be reviewing books both new and old, posting up some art I like, interviewing people, or even posting my own comics-related junk on Wednesdays. Hooray for comics!

DC Comics hits the zeitgeist of hip current trends with Victorian Undead, as the series pits Sherlock Holmes against zombies. After the zombies became a huge hit on the indie circuit (led in large part by Robert Kirkman's ongoing zombie saga The Walking Dead), major publishers began incorporating the undead in their titles- most notably Marvel Zombies. Here we've got the world's greatest detective (sorry, Batman) pitted against the living-impaired. Is this mash-up possible without it simply being...well, a ridiculous cash-in?

Surprisingly, yes. In the hands of writer Ian Edginton, (no stranger to Holmes and other classic lit comic book adaptations), Victorian Undead is a bit closer to Doyle's vision than the forthcoming Guy Ritchie film looks to be.

A meteor plummets into the heart of London in 1854 causing widespread panic and death...and undeath.

Somehow, the zombie plague subsides until corpses are unearthed 40-odd years later as the London Underground is constructed. Dead bodies soon spring back to life looking to get their bite on, and authorities are baffled. There's clearly a mystery afoot, so naturally Scotland Yard calls on Sherlock Holmes and his ol' pal Watson.

If you can't get enough zombie action, you'll definitely dig this book as there's plenty of rotting action with the promise of more to come. The premise is familiar to anyone who's ever seen...well, anything to do with the undead, although who knows? There may be plenty of twists and turns down the road. As it stands, the Victorian setting is a welcome change from the modern band of misfits vs zombies formula.

Issue #1 (on sale now) boasts a delightfully fly-infested cover by the King of Zombie Comic Book Art, Tony Moore (he of The Walking Dead 1-6). The interiors, by Davide Fabbri, are a fantastic take on cartoonish realism...but dammit, it needs an inker.

All in all, it's a fun, pretty zombie comic with blood, mystery, and names like Jacques de Vaucanson dropped so you'll end up learning something new (he was totally inventing automatons in the 18th century). Thumbs up!

A copy of the comic was given to me by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: Whiteout is not a horror movie. Anyone who's read the 1998 mini-series/graphic novel (or the follow-up, Whiteout: Melt) knows it's a murder mystery. The ad campaign, however, makes the film seem like it's a supernatural creature feature or some such, along the lines of John Carpenter's The Thing. It's not.

It is, however, a pretty terrible movie.

US Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is about to end her tenure at a research post in Antarctica- she sought the harsh, remote clime after her time with the Miami PD came to a bloody, abrupt end. Days before she's to ship out to the states, however, a body is found on the ice. Signs point to homicide, and as Stetko gets her detective on, more bodies pile up.

There's not much that Whiteout gets right, and it becomes obvious rather quickly why Dark Castle/Warner Brothers have kept it on a shelf for two years. Greg Rucka (who wrote the comic but, interestingly, not the screenplay- it took four other writers to do that) is rather known for his strong (and flawed) female characters, and on the page, Carrie Stetko is no exception. Here, she's given to exclaiming "Oh my God!" repeatedly as she bumbles her way through her investigation. Most puzzling- and, to an extent, infuriating- is the fact that we're introduced to her via a lengthy, completely gratuitous shower scene. The camera lingers on Kate Beckinsale's underwear-clad ass as she bends over, then we watch her stand on tiptoes in the steam so long that the audience starts giggling. Though it's far too obvious and silly a sequence, it might make a little sense if Stetko were at all sexualized throughout the rest of the film- but she's not. There's no romance, and nothing erotic or sensual about the character otherwise. "Degrading" is almost an appropriate word to use to describe it, but not in the sense of that age-old (and usually erroneous) "nudity in horror degrades women argument"- rather, it's degrading to the character. Beckinsale's wooden performance doesn't help, although she's not given much to work with.

Whiteout feels like a film that was made for the visually impaired- characters continually describe exactly what it is they're doing at the moment. Add to that flashback after flashback after descriptions of flashbacks we've seen as we see the flashbacks again, and the film becomes a dull, never-ending mobius strip of suck. When the words SIX MONTHS LATER flashed on screen at one point, I was sure it was real-time and half a year had gone by since I'd sat down. Six months is a long time, and so is ninety minutes- spend your ticket money on the comic books if you want entertainment.

While Whiteout isn't at all what the trailers convince you it is, Sorority Row totally is. Neither really good nor really bad, it's brainless horror movie fun, far more in line with I Know What You Did Last Summer than the source material- although there's one very subtle, sort of clever, blink and you'll miss it nod to the original.

It's a decent date movie- a few scares, a few laughs, some blood, some vicious kills, and an under-utilized Carrie Fisher...just like the trailers promised. Truth in advertising FTW!

...AMC day! Wherein this week, if thou shouldst follow the linkage, you will behold a column by moi about blaxploitation horror movies. Scream, Horror Hacker, Scream!

...comic book day! It's true. Those of you out there who are not nerds may not know it, but Wednesday is the day all the new comics hit the shops. Soooo...I'm gonna point you to this interview with my pal Brent Schoonover. Why? Well, obviously because he's righteous. Also, because I'm inking his pencils on a little comic book called Vincent Price Presents! Yes, finally, Vincent Price is a comic book star. Our issue is forthcoming, and I'll be sure to keep you updated. The series is published by Bluewater Productions, an indie company who put out an eclectic mix of horror and political titles...yes, comics based on the Leprechaun franchise and the life of Michelle Obama are cranked off the same presses. As they should be.

At ant rate, here's a swell page by Brent and me, featuring Vincent gettin' his sweat on. Click to make it BIGGER!

Brent is a horror movie fan and a terrific artist; I saw this commission on his site and I had to repost it here. Mind you, I had to get a new keyboard first, as I'd drooled all over my last one when I saw this (again, click to embiggen):

...Prince Spaghetti Day! Or at least, that's what the Prince Spaghetti Company tried to convince us New Englanders back in the day. So...I'm programmed to eat pasta on hump day, even though Prince no longer exists and I'm on the left coast now. Hooray!

The recent passing of Clayton Hill ("Sweater Zombie" from George Romero's Dawn of the Dead) has got me thinking about all those undead folk who've made an impression over the years. They (usually) don't speak and they're often one of a thousand walking corpses trying to eat the ragtag group of survivors, but we remember them regardless. Actually, horror fans don't simply remember these zombies, we celebrate them. Be honest, horror nerds- if a woman were to come up to you on the street and say "I was Majorette Zombie!" you'd know exactly who she was, right? And you'd be psyched to meet her, you know it...although you'd wonder why she felt the need to approach you and boast of her claim to fame a propos of nothing.

Here are a few of my favorite American Rotties.


She died without a name, which is sad. Then she came back to life and hauled ass trying to put the bite on Sarah Polley, which is understandable but not very nice. I like to pretend it's actually Dame Edith Massey as a zombie, which is a dream of mine that sadly will never be- at least never in the fictional sense. I suppose if there should ever be a zombie apocalypse, then the late Massey will rise from the grave. I won't know how to feel.


She seems kind of depressed and sort of nice, but in the end I doubt if she'd want to be friends.


I wonder how that happened. To be frank, he's probably better off undead.


The one that started it all, and one of my absolute most favoritest. The fact that he really was coming to get Barbra is what's known as ironicalosity.


If only for the hair and laid-back attitude.


Total gross-out icon. Great title sequence. I love Day of the Dead.


If you watch Dawn of the Dead and pay close attention, you'll see that Sweater Zombie really gets around- he's outside doing his thing, then he's taking a ride on the escalator, then he's back outside with his partner-in-crime (and off-screen wife) Nurse Zombie (Sharon Ceccatti). You have to admire his moxie and his sweater vest.


Toothy is one of the zombies corralled by the evil Army dudes so Dr. Logan can get his experimentation on- in other words, she's one of those zombies that gets the audience asking "OMG, who are the real monsters here? Is it us? I'm not sure. I mean, we're not trying to eat anybody, but on the other hand, we're jerks..." Her "every other chomper" look totally influenced the zombie designs in my comic They Won't Stay Dead!- those janky teefs are how you know they're zombies!


Proving that zombies are grosser than we'd initially realized, Bug Eating Zombie plucks a bug off a tree and gulps it down- as...you know...her name suggests. Did you know that Bug Eating Zombie is portrayed by hot piece Marilyn "Mrs. Cooper" Eastman? It's true. Dazzle your friends with trivia!


Duh.


I. Love. Him. I love how he totally overacts when the fire is waved in his face...but what I love even more is that after he overcomes his fear of the flames, Silent Movie Zombie gets irritated by them. He RULES.


Nathan Grantham is an anomaly in the zombie world- he can talk! He has a motivation for killin' beyond simple hunger! Best of all, he rises from the grave- I really wish we'd see more of that in zombie cinema.

Something just occurred to me. Let's think about what Grantham did after he decapitated poor old Aunt Sylvia, shall we, because he did a lot: he put her head on a tray. He found the frosting, then went in the silverware drawer for a knife. He frosted her head very carefully, then went searching for candles. After cramming them into her head, somehow (let's be honest, it probably took a while to get them to stay standing), he got matches or a lighter and lit them all. And he had to time all of this very carefully in order to surprise Cass and Richard as they approached the door! What a go-getter.

So, who's the most memorable zombie to you? Machete Zombie? Naked Zombie? Your mom?

Ha ha, I made that last one up.

Or did I?

AMC ran my column early this week because it's a wee interview with Aaron Paul, the dude who stars on the AMC series Breaking Bad who's not the dad from Malcolm in the Middle. He also stars in the remake of The Last House on the Left, which opens this week. Now your Tuesday is like your Wednesday, which I know is going to throw you off-track. For this I apologize, but remember- what doesn't kill you generally makes you want to kill someone else.

In related news: who's going to see Last House?


In other related news, posting is going to be light this week because...well, because I'm busy. Maybe even biz-zay. But what's taking me away from movie watching and the such is actually stuff that I can share with you down the road, so it'll all work out in the end. You know that I do everything for you...but I won't do that! Or something.

In other other related news, I'm glad to see that the results of my Wendy Torrance poll are currently in her favor. It's good to see her get some love!


In other other other related news, Toosday Toons is up. Dare you step inside...The Last House on the Right?

In other other other other related news, here's a scene from Bug. I know you gaze lovingly at that little photo in my sidebar where the woman's hair is on fire...now you can watch the movie magic happen right before your very eyes!



If there's one day I don't want my hair to catch on fire, it's my birthday. Yes, that's the set from The Brady Bunch. I'd also like to point out that she decides to make "chicken mousse", which contains "jellied chicken". I'm sure there's something out there that's more repulsive than jellied chicken and chicken mousse, but whatever it is I'd rather not know about it. Let's distract ourselves from such grossness by re-reading my review of Bug. Sweet relief!

Part one is here, part two is here!

Part one is here!

Something a wee bit different.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

How fortuitous! Just as I jump back into stick figure comics full force- like, I'm talking Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force full force here- my old pal Dirk Manning writes me to let me know that Shadowline web comics has just finished posting up our collaboration "Hungry Like the Wolf". Mayhaps you remember the 8-page comic from its original run at Dirk's Nightmare World. Mayhaps it's new to you. Mayhaps either way you should go check it out by clickening ze click click! "Hungry Like the Wolf" starts on page 82.

Shadowline is running thorough the entire Nightmare World series- all 52 stories- for your webcomics reading pleasure. There's goodness to be found in there, and it's all free free free. Read it- it's what all the cool kids are doing! They're also swearing, because swearing is cool.

If there's one thing you probably know about me by now it's that I love mint chocolate chip ice cream.

However, if you've really been paying attention then you may also know something else and that's that I can't seem to focus on any one thing forever before I get the urge to do something else. Creatively, anyway. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. Probably not. Eh, maybe I'll blame it on the fact that I'm a Gemini.

Having said that, I thought I should let you know that I've totally started making stick figure comics again- some of you may be wondering what "again" means. It means that I used to do it, then I stopped, then I got the urge to make more, and now I am. Toosday Toons is back, and it will be updated on...wait for it...Tuesdays. As I mentioned on another site where I was shamelessly pimping myself, if you read the first strip (posted today), you'll see why I had to start the comic again: obviously I have terribly important things to say. Check it out if you'd like.

All of this stick figuring got me digging through my old crap, and I found a bunch of stick figure sketchcards I'd made way back in the day. I made a Facebook album that features them and other stuff, if you're Facebookly inclined. In said digging I also found a box of blank sketchcards, so if anyone is sketchcardly inclined (stick figure or otherwise), then drop me a line. I heart commissions.

So yeah, comics. Updated Tuesdays. If I do any that are specifically horror-related, I'll post about 'em here. Otherwise there's a link in yon sidebar. I'll be doing them for a long time, I ho---ooh, what's that over there?

Horror Roundtable newcomer Matt Maxwell is releasing his first original graphic novel, entitled Strangeways: Murder Moon. It’s 144 pages of Werewolves in the Old West, and you can preview the first chapter right here, if only to verify that the illustration accompanying this post has nothing to with Maxwell’s comic. I’ll take any [...]